


Along the river

by maerzkindt



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Domestic, Eleanor has a son named samuel and they raise him, Eleanor lives, F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Max has two girlfriends, Polyamorous Character, Polyamory, Post-Canon Fix-It, canon divergence after/during 4.06, some events of 4.08 still occur though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-15 23:59:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10559924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maerzkindt/pseuds/maerzkindt
Summary: Eleanor survived the Spanish invasion and together with Max, Anne and Mrs Hudson left Nassau behind to settle somewhere in Carolina and raise her son.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Athelred (TheLatePapers)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLatePapers/gifts).



The boy bursts from the field laughing but screeches a moment later when he’s unexpectedly grabbed around the waist from behind and lifted up into the air.  
“Got you”, Anne grins and lets him struggle for a few moments before putting him down. He races away immediately, disappearing between high stems and weeds.  
“I ain’t getting you again!” she shouts after him, then walks up to the porch and settles on Max’ left side. Max leans into her, closing her eyes and breathing in the slight scent of sweat and leather. There used to be a hint of salt in it, too, but by now it’s disappeared from Anne’s hair and body and clothes. She isn’t sure whether she misses it. 

“You should not encourage this kind of behaviour in him.” a voice can be heard to their right. Max turns and sees Jane (part of her still wants to call her Mrs. Hudson after all this time but it seems a little stiff to use for a person you’ve been living and raising a child with) poking her head out of the front door. Her expression is stern but Max knows she is secretly amused, too.  
“What shall become of him if all he ever does is prance around and never learns to restrain himself?” she asks.  
“First things first I’m teaching him how to run away”, Anne answers lazily. “Fighting is next. Those are the essentials, then we can talk about restraint. By the way, can we borrow the bread knife tomorrow?”  
Jane opens her mouth to protest, realizes Anne is only joking and gives an exasperated huff instead while Max chuckles. Of course the knife will still be nowhere to be found for the next few days.  
She dozes off on Anne’s shoulder until she can feel someone sit down on her other side and that someone takes her hand a moment later.  
“Give Max a kiss”, she murmurs and Eleanor’s lips brush her cheek while she’s massaging her palm with one thumb. “Do it properly, you lazy woman”, she demands and snatches her hand away. Eleanor rolls her eyes and leans in to place a kiss on the side of her throat, sucking lightly at the sensitive skin. “Mhh, yes”, Max sighs contentedly when suddenly she is assaulted from the other side- Anne grabbing her chin and turning her head for a deep kiss on the mouth. Eleanor whines in complaint and starts trailing kisses down to her collarbone and her breasts-

“Mother!”

Max’ eyes fly open as Eleanor jerks away from her décolleté, her head flushing red. She shoots Anne a sinister look as she steps down from the porch and opens her arms to catch her son who is speeding towards her.  
“I found a bird’s nest!” he says excitedly after he’s been spun around by her enough times. “Anne, I want to show you!”  
“You’re not showing Anne anything until after dinner”, Jane again inserts herself into the conversation, and Eleanor turns around to mouth a silent thank you. After a short debate they usher Sam inside and Max is left with Anne on the bench.

“Just because I want something from Eleanor doesn’t mean I’m suddenly not interested in you”, she teases. Now it’s Anne’s turn to blush. “I ain’t jealous”, she says gruffly and looks away. Max starts tugging on a strand of red hair until she turns to her again, annoyed.  
“I want to be with you just as much as with Eleanor”, Max tells her, softly. “I told you once already that there is nothing important to me that does not include you. Just because it also includes her does not make it any less true.”  
Anne is silent, but she allows Max to give her a short kiss and follows her when she gets up and enters the house.  
Jane, Eleanor and her son- their son, Max thinks with the same flash of joy and wonder she felt the first time- have already placed bowls with soup on the table. They sit and Samuel chatters away while they eat, about what he found and what monsters he fought in the fields- Max reminds him to pause and swallow a spoonful from time to time.  
“What’s spoon in French?” he wants to know. “Une cuillère”, she says and he smiles widely and whispers it to himself for the rest of the meal. Jane and her have decided that they will teach him properly when he’s a little older- they don’t want to miss out on contributing to his education when Eleanor is already insisting on stuffing his head with numeracy and reading, though they help with that, too. Anne has taken up the task of watching over his physical prowess, and of taking him on long adventurous walks through the area when the rest of them is at work or just needs a break. She never seems to tire of the boy, always looking out for him while still not mothering or spoiling him.  
Maybe it’s because her daily life would be pretty boring without him. She’s called down to the village sometimes to help with loading or unloading a cart and spends many evenings at the tavern keeping an eye on customers who are more friendly towards alcohol than people- but other than that, there isn’t much for her to do. Still, Max has a feeling that there is more to her interest in Samuel than boredom. It seems to be the ancient story of seeing yourself in someone else, or rather trying to save someone else from becoming you. She still doesn’t know all of the things Anne has seen when she was his age, but she can imagine they’re part of why she is simultaneously so protective but also lenient to him. There are other parts of the woman she loves that she sincerely hopes will imprint on their son, though.  
Sam laughs and spills soup all over himself while trying to imitate Anne slurping it directly from the bowl-  
Maybe just not her manners.

Love has come back slowly to them- seeping in through gaps and fissures, carried inside the house while clinging to skin and clothing like pollen, like sand. It has settled in places like the windowsill (where Anne sometimes leaves flowers and other things she’s found on the way home) the little fireplace in front of which they always huddled together during Samuel’ first winter, passing him from one lap to another and watching the light of another day fading away through the window.  
In summer they watch the sunset from the porch, and on these occasions Max reminds herself of it: that another day has passed; an eventful or a quiet one, it doesn’t matter. A long time ago (how strange, to not have come that far in time since then but still feel so removed from it now) every day mattered to her, to them all. Every day had to be seized and used so they could get a little closer to some imagined goal. So they could look back on it before they went to sleep and feel like the next morning might be more than just starting over again. Back then, the days would flow by in a neverending rhythm of sunrises and sunsets- and they still do, like a slower version of one’s own heartbeat. The difference is that although they don’t have a goal anymore like they all used to, they still have a future; it just doesn’t require sacrifice after sacrifice to reach anymore. They’ve been struggling upstream in some metaphorical river all their lives. Now they’re floating downstream while watching the landscape change around them; turning round a bend and seeing something new in the distance, something they know they will eventually reach, too. 

Later, Anne and Sam are out in the fields again, Jane is probably stitching- she’s decorated the house with lots of flower bouquets and animals and educational quotes by now- and Eleanor and Max are lying in bed after returning to where they had left off before dinner. Max watches as Eleanor writes something down in her leather-bound journal while she’s propped up on one elbow. She traces the gorgeous curves of her lover’s body with her eyes- her perfect ass, her hips that appear slightly wider since Samuel’s birth, the beautiful arch of her back. She notices the golden tinge of her skin in the afternoon light and the way her hair falls down her back.  
“You look like a goddess”, she whispers and Eleanor looks at her with a confused face because she’s been pulled from her thoughts. Then she smiles.  
“Why would you of all people say that.” She puts the journal away, shuffles closer to Max and places her hands on her. Max shivers involuntarily, but lays still.  
“Why would Max, a goddess in the flesh,” Eleanor continues and draws little circles on her skin with her fingers, “-call me, a mere mortal, one of her own? I mean, look at you.” She pokes her stomach and Max giggles. “You’re so beautiful it’s unreal. And you know the strangest part of it all?”  
“No, I do not”, Max says and smirks at her with half-closed eyelids, in the way she knows drives Eleanor insane. (She knows it from when they were together in Nassau, a lifetime ago. Funny how everything has turned upside down since then but things like that have stayed with her.) To her surprise, it doesn’t work today. Eleanor just bows down and kisses her for a very long time. It’s different from Anne’s kiss on the porch and different from the way Eleanor had kissed her before- it’s very soft, almost a little doubtful. When they finally pull apart, Eleanor stays hovering above her and just cups her face in her hands and stares at her.  
“Chérie”, Max says, “is everything alright?” There are tears in Eleanor’s eyes. Max pushes herself into a sitting position and pulls Eleanor close. She rakes through her locks with her fingers while steadying Eleanor’s body with her own.  
“I’m just…” Eleanor’s voice sounds small. She untangles herself from the hug and tries a smile that’s being contradicted a little by her teary eyes, but still seems genuine. “What I wanted to say. The strangest part.” she says and clears her throat.  
“Yes?”  
“The strangest part is that you, you are so beautiful”, Eleanor continues, “and yet… so kind. I’m just amazed every fucking day how you could go back and love me, again. After everything…” She swallows. Max feels her heart aching for her, for the woman in front of her who can’t believe what is obvious to her.  
“I said something to Anne once”, she says, fixing Eleanor’s eyes with her own and ignoring her slightly tensing up at the mention of her other girlfriend’s name, “that she was the truest person I knew. I still feel the same, and that means neither I nor you have been the bravest or the most honest people. We have both done things we wish we could undo. But we can’t, and we shouldn’t.” Eleanor sniffs weakly and Max wills herself to keep a serious expression for the rest of her speech. “Eleanor, we wouldn’t be right here if not for those choices.” she says. “Everything would have gone differently and we wouldn’t be here, and we wouldn’t have Sam. I have forgiven you as Anne has forgiven me, and I want nothing more than to stay here with both of you, and with him. And with Jane” she adds, and finally Eleanor laughs. “You’re just so nice”, she says and places a kiss on the tip of her nose.

“She ain’t nice.”  
They both jerk and turn; Anne is standing in the doorway making a very sour face. Max steadies herself for a moody outburst and is very surprised when Anne just shuts the door behind her and begins stripping at a speed she didn’t think was possible for a human being.  
“What?” is all she can say before Anne joins them on the bed and roughly pushes her so she falls on her back. Baffled, she looks on as Anne briefly and tenderly touches Eleanor’s cheek in a way she has never acted towards her ever before. Eleanor seems just as blown away.  
“She ain’t nice”, Anne repeats, “because she won’t even call me over when there’s something interesting happening here. But then that means you ain’t nice, too.” she says while pointing an accusing finger at Eleanor with a grin. Soon that grin starts to blossom on Max’ face too.  
“Oh, we are so very sorry”, she says. “How can we ever repay you?”  
Anne flops down onto the pillows beside her and closes her eyes.  
“I can think of one or two ways…”

**Author's Note:**

> this was a gift for athelred (TheLatePapers), I hope you like it and the cheesy meta part in the middle is bearable to read :)
> 
> sorry i didn't give any explanation as to how and why and what exactly they're doing, but here's how the canon divergence goes in my mind: flint came back in time in 4.06 to save eleanor and madi. eleanor realized her husband is a horrible person and went to philadelphia with max and anne (so that particular part of 4.08 still happens) and mrs hudson tagged along too. maybe grandma guthrie helped them, maybe not, but they end up somewhere in carolina and Eleanor has her baby and names him Samuel because... i thought it was a nice name. (he's around 6 years old maybe?)  
> if you'd like me to expand on my thoughts for this AU just write me a message :)
> 
> p.s. i almost named this "just around the riverbend" haha


End file.
